Dick- I think Al posted in the newsletter data on the shipment of trapdoors to the various states.

You may want to check to see when M1868s were first passed out, and to whom My gut feeling is that your rifle may have gone as militia issue to Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont.

I wonder if at that time the 1868 was first made if they also passed out one each samples to the governors like they later did with Krags?

Frankly, I cannot think of why SA would keep one around just for giggles when they were clearly in mass production. Also the "grab everything .50 caliber and sell it to the crazy Frenchmen" campaign had not yet started.